– By placing our money in green, we are signaling to the banks that we are concerned about climate and the environment, says Anja Bakken Riise. She is the leader of Framtiden i våre händer (FIVH), and believes Norwegians can become more climate conscious in the way we choose to save our money. Nevertheless, she warns against believing that everything is climate-friendly, even if it is labeled green or pretends to be. – Looking for funds that are defined as green by an objective third party can be a good idea, says Riise. Green development Green savings are different ways of putting savings or pensions into savings products, such as green funds, explains senior adviser for sustainability at DNB, Line Asker. Green funds must be environmentally friendly, climate friendly and/or sustainable. A fund often consists of many different types of shares. A share is an ownership stake in a company. But a fund can also consist of both loans and shares in companies. Thus, green funds can be an investment in companies, which will contribute to tomorrow’s solutions. – We clearly see increased demand and attention to green funds in recent years, says Asker in DNB. WANT TO INVEST MORE GREEN: For DNB, it is a clear goal to facilitate more investments in the green shift. Photo: Stig B. Fiksdal / Stig B. Fiksdal Afraid of greenwashing Student Fredrik Askim is critical of some green measures because of the possibility of greenwashing. Greenwashing involves companies using misleading marketing to appear more environmentally and climate-friendly than they really are. For example, a company can boast that they use solar panels, without mentioning that this is on an oil platform. CONCERNED WITH CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT: Fredrik studies political science at UiT in Tromsø. In addition, he is responsible for sustainability at the UiT student parliament. Photo: Simen Meistad Hermansen / news – It’s a joke, says Fredrik, who himself doesn’t have his money in a fund. He is nevertheless positive about green savings if you can avoid greenwashing. Advises people to look for Swan-labelled funds Anja Bakken Riise from FIVH believes that people should think a little about when buying green funds. – Choosing Swan-labelled funds can be a good idea, as this is checked by an objective third party and does not just sound green, says Riise. The Swan Ecolabel is the official environmental label in Norway and the other Nordic countries. In Swan-labelled funds we find Norwegian companies such as Orkla, Norsk Hydro and several Norwegian power producers. The Swan-labelled funds are best suited for long-term investments, as the risk in the funds is evenly above medium to high. THE Swan label: An assurance that a fund is actually green DNB does not use the Swan label, Asker says, instead EU regulations and an ethical label are used. The EU’s requirements for green funds The EU regulations must promote transparency, ease of use and prevent greenwashing in the financial industry. The EU received harsh criticism for the regulations in a case with the news agency Reuters a year ago. The criticism was, among other things, that they were used as a branding scheme for the funds. Which was not the EU’s intention. The requirements were also too vague, and could be counterproductive. The future in our hands supports the criticism. They want stricter regulations to be able to call something green. Article 8 of the EU’s requirements has been renamed light green by the financial industry. – The financial industry itself markets a third of the world’s professionally managed capital as green or sustainable, says Riise in FIVH. DNB offers several light green funds. One of them contains the Kongsberg group. In addition, you will also find several oil and gas companies on this list. – This underlines the need to tighten the EU’s regulations, says Riise. – We need a regulatory framework that makes it easier for a consumer to compare funds and banks. Today it is extremely confusing. Sustainability adviser Asker points out that it is not DNB that manages or brands this fund, even though they offer it. Although DNB is neither worse nor better than other Norwegian banks, Anja Bakken Riise believes that they still have a great responsibility as Norway’s largest bank.
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Green funds are climate-friendly – but watch out for greenwashing – news Troms and Finnmark
